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Touchstone flirts with the shepherdess Audrey, joking cynically about poetry, marriage, and love. (“The truest poetry is the most feigning…”) Though he claims he doesn’t mind if she’s not an honest woman, he has arranged for a country vicar to marry them there in the woods.

When the vicar arrives, Jacques (who has been eavesdropping) steps forward—supposedly to give the bride away, but really to urge Touchstone to get married in church so that the marriage will be legal. In an aside, Touchstone admits he was hoping the marriage could be easily annulled. Jacques leads the couple away, ditching the vicar.